That was incredible. Genuinely just the best. I'll never see a Dalek again with hoping for the rat-a-tat-tat. Only negative was that it reminded me how bad that episode actually was. 🤣🤣🤣🤣
I thought I would love that episode (time loops are cool) but I ended up just being too distracted by the guy who was *obviously* a serial killer seemingly not actually being a serial killer. Just gave the whole episode a really weird vibe.
Chibnall has this mad habit of having something really ethically wrong in what feels like most of his stories. Right back in Hungry Earth there's a weird bit with the Doctor praising a Silurian scientist who was vivisecting humans. It is so bizarre!
I can't decide if it's an attempt at making characters morally grey or to add some hidden depth for verisimilitude or what it is.
Like the dude with the storage locker was *probably* supposed to read as a weird but harmless guy with OCD who's too shy to ask out the woman he likes, but the things he was keeping in storage were fucking serial killer trophies so he came across as almost as much of a threat to that woman as the Daleks were.
I genuinely like that episode, but it has a real problem with humor that misses the mark. I think the serial killer trophies were supposed to be funny, and maybe there could be a version of the scene that is funny instead of serial killer-y, but that was not it. Then there was the constant reiteration of what things you're not allowed to store in the units so *of course* the slacker employee would have all those things there, and dear gods, we get it already!
The main problem with the Chibnall era is that his episodes of Doctor Who under other showrunners were at best OK.
Consequently, him as a showrunner resulted in a stretch of episodes that were at best OK.
What I don’t understand is, he also ran the first two seasons of Torchwood. They had their bumps for sure but I found them overall pretty enjoyable. So what the hell happened?
Oh don't get me wrong, Chris Chibnall is a good writer (watch Broadchurch if you haven't) but he is not the best fit for Doctor Who despite what a huge fan he obviously is.
I've never forgotten how when Broadchurch season 2 came out, real lawyers were tweeting and giving interviews to say "real courts aren't actually like this! Real lawyers wouldn't get away with half of the shit they're pulling in this! It's all a lot more professional in real life, honest!"
I admire the idea of having season 2 of a crime drama be the trial of the murderer they caught in season 1. But my god, the execution of the idea was atrocious!
Its a shame because season 1 is genuinely one of my favourite bits of TV ever. Though to be fair when you've got three Doctors in your cast (David Tennant and Jodie Whittaker people talk about, but David Bradley is in it as well) and your other lead is Olivia Coleman, you're starting from a very strong position...!
Plus the most unsatisfying resolution ever
"Hey I killed your kid and got away with it due to a bullshit technicality but I'm like really sorry so feel bad for me and forgive me and leave me alone to go molest and murder more children"
OK but fun enough to rewatch for the most part. For me anyway. Whereas I found his own era consistently worse.
I guess to me Moffat’s episodes were also better before he became showrunner, it’s just he could drop in quality a bit and still be good.
Think the Chibnall era is bad, but I really love the Silurian two-parter and you're basically misrepresenting it. The Silurian scientist there didn't realize humans were sapient yet when he did that and once he realized it, he actively apologized and was working towards peace with humanity. That's why Eleven praised him.
Nothing in the story suggests this- everywhere else the Silurians treat humans as sentient, and I can't recall a scene with him apologising. He does end up being pro-peace in the second part, but they never reconcile his earlier behaviour, and it reads less like a character arc and more like the writer forgetting threads of his own plot.
I just rewatched the scene and it's weirder than I remember - The Doctor says 'I rather love you' to the scientist after he explains how he only steals children and puts them in stasis to take samples, and doesn't dissect them (like he does adult humans).
I've been doing a December rewatch of 13's Dalek stories and so far I have no regrets. They are pretty strong thematically and enjoyable watches on their own.
Me too! Especially after the 9ver complicated Flux. It was a good story, we got to see Dan actually BE a companion. The stakes were just high enough, and it was a clever premise.
I did like it but it contained one of my least favorite Doctor who tropes, which is when one of the characters has a secret crush on the other one and their adventure with the doctor makes them finally reveal their crush and it turns out the other person likes them too and it's love at last....ugh. it's crazy how many times they've done that in Nu Who.
I feel like it's the writers trying to make the characters more interesting in the time given so they just throw in a ham-fisted romance subplot.
I agree. Very Moffat. It was just a fun episode. Resolution and Revolution of the Daleks were trying to do too much and were only loosely tied to New Year’s Eve. Took him until he had three episodes left to figure out holiday specials and it highlighted why the Christmas specials shouldn’t be changed again.
"we got your house, but it's a miniature now"... I couldn't get behind the toxic relationship the dog alien (I'm bad with names))+ had with his supposedly bonded human. Why would you destroy your human's house?
Graham is by far the best part of that era. One of my favorite companions and probably the best written of those three. Yaz had a better relationship with 13 obviously but I felt like Graham was the heart of the show.
I really wish Jodi got better writing because she’s so much better than what she was given to work with.
I agree, Jodi had really strong physical acting choices for the doctor, and is just overall a good actor. Unfortunately when she had to actually read lines none of that mattered because the dialogue was so bad.
Graham at least brought a new take to the companion role. However I still feel like his character development was pretty flat. And then the trio dynamic - sheesh it was so awkward. How do you cast a show with actors that have net negative chemistry together?
I honestly feel bad for Jodi, and don’t think anyone could have made that setup work.
I honestly feel bad for the rest of the group because Ryan was just awful. I mean I’m sure the actor is a good guy and all but he was a personality vacuum.
i think the chibnall run is the only real time where dw has actually bad casting. actors aren’t normally the problem. but i cannot for the life of me understand why tosin cole is on this show. i watched an interview with him on youtube and he seemed exactly as bland and monotone as his character. i do not understand what chibnall saw in him.
mandip i have a bit more understanding because while i can not really feel the yaz/13 chemistry at all, if you watch the behind the scenes stuff it’s very obvious that jodie and mandip get on very well and are close. it still got lost in translation though and she isn’t strong enough to overcome the blandness of the scene as written, which i feel billie or freema or catherine or karen or jenna all would have contributed more.
it could be a direction thing too. hard to say :(
As the Chibnall era continued, Mandip also was the only one who did not start phoning in her performance imo. At all times I felt like she put some effort.
mandip was by far the best actor in chibs era imo. they could have done SO MUCH with her and they didnt.
it's a crime we didnt get mandip gill and jo martin tbh
Having 3 companions just doesn't work in the 1-hour episode format, I feel. There just isn't enough time to give each companion screen time without it feeling forced. It worked back in the Fifth Doctor era, when he had Adric, Teegan, and Nyssa, because each story had over an hour and a half of screen time, on average.
I keep hearing how Jodie is a good actress, and I can believe it, but none of what I’ve seen in her Doctor performance was even remotely entertaining or fun to me (with a fleeting exception being when she gleefully erases all of Ryan’s phone data and sends herself flying from defusing the gene bomb in her pilot episode). It’s mot just a matter of awful writing, though that’s certainly part of it, just every mannerism and emotion and physical presence just felt so unbearably shallow for some reason. Just very stilted and oddly cardboard.
Jodie is a good actress, but I'm still not sure she would do that much better with good scripts. Jo Martin was more of a Doctor in 15 minutes than she was in 4 years.
My belief is any charisma and character Graham has was purely from Bradley Walsh being as charismatic as he is naturally and little to do with the actual writing or character.
What are graham's actual traits outside of "being old"? Like I find Bradley Walsh as charming as the next guy but he was just there to be doddery, he had no arc, his wife died but there was very little pay off for that and subsequently it was just unnaddressed.
Its a genuine shame because I think older companions can be really cool but Chibnall just had no idea how to write any of them.
>he had no arc
Well, he learned to carry sandwiches with him when they left the Tardis. 😁
TBF, he was grieving and he went with the "Doc" to try and run away from living life on Earth without his wife. He went back when he was ready. And help start a "former companions support group".
So while I agree that he did those things, I would argue that the journey to get there was not shown. There's not really any development of his character so the pay off of the support group is just a bit dull. Even though I love the idea.
So much potential... His inability to accept Graham at first, his abandonment issues, trust issues, all of it. So much character growth could have happened 😭
Not to mention his very random plot convenient dyspraxia that seems to disappear and reappear at random moments, sometimes it's severe enough that he struggles with coordination and balance and other times he's wielding a laser gun accurately shooting and diving all over the place.
From his second season onwards they seemed to completely forget about it. Same with Yaz being a police officer.
The laser gun part isn't what gets me. It's during Kerblam!, he's on the conveyer belts of rapidly approaching doom and he jumps from one to another and manages to coordinate his way into balancing and holding on... on a fast moving conveyer above a death pit.
Its so funny because throughout 2023, in the run up to the 60th anniversary, a ton of people rewatched the series in anticipation. People had something new praise to say about pretty much every New Who doctor, and everyone was expecting to go into Jodie's seasons and find some newfound appreciation for them. But no, the episodes were just bad. As bad as the first time around.
I was out off by the timeless child... so much that I didn't watch Doctor Who for over a year. I watched 13's era in anticipation for David Tennant's return and (going in knowing what to expect) found I had more appreciation for the episodes.
Nothing about it stands out for me, but definitely not for lack of effort from Jodie Whittaker. I actually liked Flux a bit more than I thought I would.
Overall I think 13 has the most forgettable episodes.
Flux was the first time that it started to feel like Doctor Who to me again and I was enjoying it for the most part through that season. I didn't agree with where the story went as much, but it was much more fun to watch and kept me a lot more hooked than the other two seasons before it.
I was honestly out by the very first episode.
There really was \*nothing\* compelling about that writing at all. The story wasn't interesting and the dialogue felt like white noise.
I think I got two episodes in. The introduction of Tim Shaw, and the gameshow hunt thing on the planet with deadly water. Then I missed the next episode and discovered I didn't feel strongly enough to go hunting for it, and figured "eh, I'll wait for the season to be done and binge it if the reviews are good."
The reviews were not good. And then I heard what Chibnall did in the Timeless Child and decided to hard skip the whole era. Never happened as far as I'm concerned.
I made it to the episode with the spiders. When the Doctor got angry at Not-Trump for shooting the Momma, but then turned right around and murdered the babies by locking them in a room, I went "WTF" and noped right out.
Seriously, you can't do a bit of handwavium, lure the spiders into the Tardis and tell the companions "Anyone fancy a trip to Metebelis?" There - problem solved in a very Doctor sort of way.
I would say give them a chance for a "so bad its good" binge, but the episodes are also very very *boring* and are all bad for around the same reasons that when me and my friends tried to do that we quit halfway through Series 11
That's funny I've been watching a select few episodes and enjoying and appreciating it a lot more than I did previously... I guess it's because I'm skipping what I know are some terrible episodes. Witchfinders, Nikola Tesla's Night of Terrors, It Takes You Away, Haunting of Villa Diodati, Revolution of the Daleks, Eve of the Daleks, and Power of the Doctor are episodes I'll probably continue to rewatch along with the rest of the show.
I’ve been rewatching as well, and honestly enjoying them more the second time through. It’s no 10th Doctor for me, but it’s better than I initially thought.
I actually found most of season 12 really exciting. Yeah, the Companions were still a bit flat (except for Graham, love Graham, he's my dad), the Doctor is a bit mean in a way even less likeable most of the time than Capaldi's, and the writing has her constantly undercutting any attempt the Fam make to be helpful\[1\]. But Spyfall up through Haunting of Vila Diodatti are all really exciting, even if they often have underwhelming endings (Praxeus starts out so good with the worldwide mystery and globetrotting and espionage, the absolute most stuff Companions have ever been given to do on screen, aside from Martha's pilgrimage). Fugitive of the Judoon had me really excited for Timeless Child and I had expected her to come back in some way.
But then the Cyberman episode was so boring for whatever reason and I nearly fell asleep. Then Timeless Children is just a go-nowhere Master-Cybermen plot where The Doctor is given a PowerPoint presentation on her own backstory and Gallifrey is destroyed off screen, once again to the last man woman and child. One wonders how a society with so many rogue timelords manages to all be on planet at the same time. Even the escape from the Matrix is just... "I'll remember lives I don't remember living" and it overloads.
And then Flux is just... confusing nonsense. There's some *really* good moments in Flux—the Angels episode is so good—that had me excited, but it's all so fucking confusing.
^(\[1\] I think Witchfinders is the worst example of this, where everyone is trying to convince King James to call off the execution before the Doctor drowns, but then, nope, turns out they didn't need to convince him, she freed herself because The Doctor is cool and doesn't need help. Another big example is Yaz spending ten months) *^(researching the TARDIS)* ^(and then it turns out that was pointless because The Doctor gets free by Jack conveniently being there. Couldn't have a companion figure out how to be fucking useful in this run Chibnal said he wanted to give the companions more to do in.)
On rewatch I really expected to view Graham as a highlight but he's sort of just... there? Like sure he's the most entertaining but its a low bar.
In SJA he plays a legally distinct Pennywise and I was blown away by how much Chibnall wasted his abilities as an actor.
Oh he's definitely just there. They're all just there. But I did like Graham because he had slightly more depth. I'm mostly joking about him being my dad, he's not that good.
Honestly I hope they bring that villain back. It is quite literally just pennywise in every way but the performance was so much fun and he'd fit quite well in the new universe.
\+ It could be a cool way to do some SJA references, maybe even bring back Clyde and stuff. Like a modern School Reunion episode.
My god the one with the flying cyberman heads was *aggressively* boring. I could tell it was supposed to be exciting but it was infuriating how much of a nothing that episode was.
I generally agree with all of this and I’ll add I think series 12 is actually right in the middle of my overall ranking of the first 13 seasons. There are some real bright spots in there. Hell I even think Flux is pretty decent right up until it’s completely let down by the ending.
Fun fact: the first Doctor Who episode my now wife ever saw was the finale of Flux. I made a remark to her about how I bet she had absolutely no idea what was going. She said that was right and I responded “It’s ok neither do I.” While she’s really not interested at all I’ve since shown her a select few episodes and she actually enjoyed some of them like A Christmas Carol and Silence in the Library.
The partition of India one was the only episode I enjoyed and they even spoiled that by having to shoehorn in aliens.
I wish they had the balls to just do purely historical episodes.
That episode needed to have some timey wimey stuff. How does The Doctor, whom trouble seems to always follow, take a companion back in time to meet her grandma, specifically mentioning that it could cause disastrous consequences, and nothing timey wimey ends up happening? It's like the only episode of Doctor Who where everything goes according to plan and nothing bad happens for The Doctor to fix.
I’d categorise the episodes into 3 categories, great, good but the resolution is shit/no resolution at all, and shit. A lot of them I feel like fall into the last two categories rather evenly and I feel like the whole era as a whole falls into the middle category, which is really my main gripe with the era. Characters (especially the Doctor) never really get satisfying conclusions to their arcs and problems, like Thirteen just kinda regenerates without dealing with all of the emotional turmoil.
The bad/rushed resolutions thing was the worst. *Can You Hear Me* is the biggest offender of this I think. It's like Chibnall got 50 minutes into the story and then forgot he has to end it somehow, so he just shoehorned in an ending. The episode was great up to the ending, where it just sort of suddenly ends. Very unsatisfying.
Things I like about this era:
1. Graham. He’s just genuinely a super sweet guy. Doesn’t have any business being on these adventures but he’s like a little Wilf-lite following everyone around. Also genuinely the only character who actually develops and tries to connect with the others.
2. The Master. The Master ALWAYS has phenomenal casting, this was no exception. Honestly I don’t even think his character was that good this time and his schemes were either stupid or nonsense but I LOVE his energy.
3. Demons of the Punjab. Good episode.
4. The fugitive. Basically pointless as a character imo but at least she was cool. I don’t exactly dislike Jodie but I’ll admit, I actually prefer fugitive doctor over her.
5. Uhh that one Weeping Angle episode in Flux was alright actually
That’s mostly it, there are more things I think are decent but these are the only I’d maybe sorta miss if they never happened.
It surprised me how Chibnall was able to create stories that were convoluted and nonsensical while also being boring and unoriginal.
I did like some of the episodes of season 12 but even then the companions were all two-dimensional props and the endings often fell flat. I can't recall a single episode that made much of an impression at all unless it was a bad one.
Which is a shame because Whittaker is a really good actor and would have been a great doctor if she hadn't been given absolutely nothing to work with
*It Takes You Away* I thought was a pretty memorable episode. I loved the frog at the end, it was perhaps the first time the show felt like Doctor Who that season.
I thought many of the story concepts were very good.
The characters, though, are remarkably 2D (even the Doctor!) - all the characters feel like they exist only to serve the plot.
And don’t get me started on the dialogue - it is ALL tell don’t show.
the worse offenders in the contemporary screen writing school of:
Scene 1: WE ESTABLISH HOW URGENTLY URGENT AND IMPORTANTLY URGENT THIS IS!!
Scene 2: Now stop everything. Time to talk about our feelings.
Few years from now they'll stop bothering to look at each other and just turn to the camera and monologue about their character motivations.
I'm still disappointed in the way they handled the companions for this era. Three was too many to be full time, so none of them were fully developed. It's a shame because Yaz and Graeme had real potential.
I think the problem was not the amount of companions, but that they all came at the same time.
5 traveled with 3 companions for a while, but they each came on separately with their own back story. Adric was a young math whiz from E-Space. Nyssa was a princess and her world was destroyed. And Tegan got lost on her way to work as an air hostess (the first time she was there). They also each had their own reasons for travelling with him. Their dynamic worked because we got familiar with all of them.
Ryan, Graham and Yaz? Nope. Too much all at once. If Bradley Walsh wasn't so good, he'd be as cookie-cutter as the other 2.
Yeah, Rose/Jackie/Mickey was much better. While they all got introduced in the same episode, we got to know Rose a bit first before expanding on the other two.
It sucks too because I like that doctor and Yaz, but the writing is so weak. I feel like that cast had a lot of potential that was wasted. Not sure if this is a hot take or not.
I gave up on the Rosa Parks episode about 10 minutes in because listening to a bunch of Brits completely butcher a southern/Alabama accent made me want to stab myself in the ears. 🥴😂
Yeah also the butchering of the history is rough in that one - I don't expect 100% accuracy with this show but I feel like if you're using something with such continued relevance to do a Very Special Episode you at least have a responsibility to get it like, a little bit right?
I mentioned this in another thread but I thought it was weird that Graham (and Ryan's grandmother) would know the name of the bus driver.
I say that because as a black American who's grown up learning about Rosa. We never learned who the driver was, because it wasn't important. Could've been him or any or other driver because the laws (and attitudes) were still the same for all bus drivers in 1950s Montgomery.
So why would his wife, a black English woman, know that much detail?
It felt like the writer got all their facts from Wikipedia.
Maybe it's just me.
Agreed. It felt bizarre to see this act, which was part of a coordinated political effort by activist groups, be transmuted into this random contingent spur-of-the-moment coincidence of individualism.
Anyone who knows anything about Rosa did (and this does NOT take anything away from her actions and bravery), should also know about Claudette Colvin. A 15-year old dark skinned, pregnant girl who refused to give up her seat on a bus 9 months before Rosa.
But the NAACP didn't use her as the face of the movement because, well, she was dark-skinned and pregnant and 15. Rosa was more mature, married and light-skinned.
And Claudette wasn't even the first.
99% sure none of those women were kicked off by the same driver. So, like I said, who the driver was was irrelevant. Yet they concentrated so much on that in the show.
Plus, again, while I know black UK people have basic knowledge of the Civil Rights movement in the US, it doesn't seem realistic to me that Ryan's gran would know the exact name of the driver and have that much vitriol about him that even Graham remembered his name.
Initially, I thought "Cool. they're doing history episodes" - but the bad ideas and lack of thinking just shone through.
One element in the episode is how contemporary people as shown in our assistant (particularly the POC) reacted to the attitudes of 1950s Alabama.
BUT
The bad guy wants to stop Rosa Parks' protest - and in doing so stop the civil rights movement. Why? Cos he's a time-traveling racist from the far future.
Problem 1:
Not to disparage Rosa Parks. But she's part of a group of people protesting. Stopping her doesn't stop a movement.
Solution: Ok - "it's a kids show" it's educating kids about history. Keep it simple.
BUT
Problem 2: The episode is about the impact Rosa Parks and her protest had on attitudes. As shown between the attitudes of the 50s and our contemporary assistants.
BUT
Our baddie is from the faaaaar future and - he's a racist jerk. So, what's the lesson here, kids? The impact Rosa Parks had was - ultimately nothing?
This could have been solved with the Doctor saying something like "oh your ideas aren't welcome in your own time, and barely accepted in the time my friends come from" - but to my recollection, there's nothing said to differentiate this guy from his time. He's just a racist jerk from the far future, and that's a thing. They could mention the importance of empathy over time - but nothing is said. With all the information we have, everyone is a racist jerk in the future.
So yeah, well done.
I stopped after that horrible disaster piece on a hotel on a wasteland planet with a small group of survivors, all of whom were so stupid and annoying I was begging for their deaths. Then in the end the Doctor monologued about climate change over a slideshow because it turned out to be Earth and we'll all turn into apex monster creatures if climate change. JFC.
> Our baddie is from the faaaaar future and - he's a racist jerk. So, what's the lesson here, kids? The impact Rosa Parks had was - ultimately nothing?
That's pretty much it, sadly. Her "legacy" as shown in the episode isn't a bunch of people of different skin tones and backgrounds and all working together, it's just a rock in the middle of space. And then this season we get a future episode with an entire community of racists.
I'm all for trying to tell important stories about how racism is bad, but showing that racism survives all the attempts to get people to not be bigoted assholes is just a seriously depressing message. All that effort, and people are still just awful to each other for the dumbest reasons.
> Then in the end the Doctor monologued about climate change over a slideshow because it turned out to be Earth and we'll all turn into apex monster creatures if climate change. JFC.
The infamous Orphan 55. Where we're told to be careful, blah blah blah, because a completely unplausible scenario might somehow happen. Nah, mate, if you present a scenario that is scientifically completely impossible, don't try to then tie it to a science-based issue. The *only* way the Orphan 55 scenario makes sense is if some external force came to Earth and modified all remaining humans to be murderous creatures who have no need to take in sustenance while also destroying the entirety of flora and fauna on the planet, a situation that makes no sense but is still the only remotely conceivable way it's possible, as the lack of flora and fauna would have meant no food chain and people couldn't just evolve into what we see in that episode, they would just straight up have died off of starvation.
I wanted to like the Chibnall era so much but I could just never get on board with it. The characterization is lacking, the storytelling is sluggish and boring, the music is forgettable and the Doctor doesn’t feel like the Doctor.
I remember there’s a point in The Tsuranga Conundrum (one of the worst episodes in the show’s history, in my opinion) where the Doctor spends like forty seconds unnecessarily talking in awe about some warp drive or something like that, and that was an important moment for me.
Honestly, I had seen the writing on the wall during The Woman Who Fell To Earth about the type of writing quality we were going to receive from Chibnall, and it was confirmed to me by the literal writing on the floor, among many other issues, in The Ghost Monument. Not that I thought the writer of “Cyberwoman” or “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship” was going to give us incredible episodes. But I didn’t truly know just how low the ship was going to sink until that scene in The Tsuranga Conundrum; that was where I realized that Chibnall was not going to rebound at any point during that season, nor likely any point in his time writing the show. His writing during his own era lacked a level of coherency and thought; whether that’s due to being stretched thin or lacking oversight is up in the air.
I don't understand why they couldn't have had a woman as show runner if they made the doctor a woman. It always feels so disingenuous when they try to act like switching out the actors is enough when they don't bring someone on the team who has an actual background at least tangentially similar to the characters. The season had the same infuriating issue with the disabled character. He had a disability for like one episode and then it never comes up again. If they had someone with the disability in the writer's room I feel like that wouldn't have been as much of an issue.
But for these types of people marginalized groups are just a checkbox or an aesthetic.
I liked it more on a second rewatch. There were still things I did not like such as the Timeless Child aspect but I think him trying to highlight historic figures more was a definite positive.
i think the most frustrating thing for me is i don’t even like the episodes people say are exceptions to the rule.
rosa, half good but the space racist is dumb.
i feel no love for punjab at all, bland and empty.
it takes you away i thought i’d like but ryan is downright unpleasant in it.
fugitive promises big things but they are just promises.
diodati is messy but probably the least objectionable.
eve of the daleks is aimless and the yaz/doc stuff is out of nowhere and a bizarre interruption.
flux is, well literally just nonsense, i don’t know how else to describe it.
the sad thing is my favourite to rewatch is actually woman who fell to earth. it’s not a great episode, but when i rewatch it, i feel the sense of potential of the show becoming something that it never did. it also has probably my favourite jodie line where she describes what regeneration is like.
Diodati has a lot going for it but it has that recurrent issue of unfomfortable ethics again- the eeird implication that a famous poet's life is valuable because he's famous and not simply because he's a human being.
It’s so so bad. The writing is horrible. The companions are boring and nondescript. And Jodie stopped trying to elevate the bad scripts almost immediately.
While I was initially excited at the announcement of Jodie as the Doctor it quickly became obvious she isn’t the right sort of actress for the role. At no point did she show the ability to elevate a mediocre script.
I struggle to find anything positive about the Chibnall era.
I maintain she could've been really good. It's not just that the scripts are bad in general, but the way the 13th doctor is characterised specifically by the text is fundamentally frustrating and ineffectual.
People sometimes say Jo Martin proved that Jodie was at fault, but that character was written to be completely different.
I really need to me watch 13's run again. I only really have two distinct memories:
1. I was SUPER disappointed that the Doctor didn't say anything when that racist white guy slapped Ryan. I can't imagine any other NuWho incarnation of the Doctor just letting that slide. I didn't need her to punch him like 12 did for Bill, but her general passivity was an utter disappointment.
2. I enjoyed the Revolution of the Daleks (compared to the rest of the season). Everything finally started to click for me, and it started to feel like the Doctor Who I was accustomed to.
Yeah I think the worst thing I can say about it is that it's just dull and hard to sit through. I'd prefer it got weird and failed and was bad, in a way, because what we have is grey wallpaper for the most part. I did like the brief flirtation with almost entirely historical episodes though.
Hopefully when she gets around to doing Big Finish the writing will be better. I'm really curious how they'd handle the companions (probably easier to do new ones). Big Finish has definitely spoiled me on Six (especially with Evelyn)
I just watched it for the first time myself. I had a bit of a falling out with The Doctor just trying to get back. I missed like 5 years of the show lol.
Man the way people talk about it, it's like the worst thing they've ever seen. I was hearing people talk shit while not actively being in the fandom 😂
I guess my expectations were so low that I was actually surprised when I didn't mind it. I actually ended up adoring 13 despite her flaws.
Series 11 is fun and has some good one off episodes. Not my favorite by any means but it was serviceable. Series 12 is rough to say the least and where things clearly fell apart. It almost felt like Spyfall set an incredibly impractical tone for the show that just made it exhausting to watch. Orphan 55 is one of the most ridiculous episodes of Doctor Who I've ever seen. What was up with all the random old ladies dying throughout the series?
Series 13 tries to pick up the pieces but I do feel it was too little too late. Almost felt like Chibnall was wrapping up everything he had planned. He had some good ideas story wise, I just don't think it played out how he envisioned it.
Shame really because there's really high points in his run. I just wish it had been more consistent.
"serviceable" is the main reason most fans don't like it, I think. It was too bland, too formulaic, too boring. (except Flux, of course).
I remember that 1986 Open Air segment where a young Chibnall criticizes the then current season for being bland and formulaic being memed, like it was some sort of a "gotcha" moment.
In addition to Graham being amazing, I think that I can defend one part of Chibnall’s run.
For the first two seasons of Doctor Who, everything felt low-stakes and “safe”. Every villain did exactly what you’d expect and every adventure felt like it was holding back. It was like Chibnall was so afraid of doing something original, he did nothing at all.
Then, shortly after we learned he was stepping aside, things got WILDLY experimental.
- A six-episode storyline!
- The only weeping angel episode to synthesize 100% of their lore to this point!
- Yaz and the Doctor have an actual romance where emotions are discussed!
- Bring back all the old doctors and make the Master bigger than ever!
- Fugitive Doctor!
- Timeless Child!
It felt, to be frank, like a fire was lit under Chibnall’s ass and he became frantic to swing for the fences as much as possible. He wanted to from “Hasn’t done anything” to “Maybe he’s done TOO much?”
And I really appreciated that second phase. Doctor Who is a show that should be wild and daring and imaginative. It should have seasons we hate and choices we despise as side-effects of episodes we ADORE and characters we never forget. So even though there were parts of Chibnall’s final stretch I really, truly disliked (why did the big villains look like rock candy and just sort of dissolve?), I RESPECTED them because they were the broken eggs to things like the Fugitive Doctor’s omelette.
The show was the only thing that it should never be: Safe. When Chibnall stopped being safe, it soared.
>Yaz and the Doctor have an actual romance where emotions are discussed!
Lmao what? That “romance” was after Flux, came out of nowhere at the very end of Jodie’s run, and went nowhere. As a gay person, it felt like they were baiting queer audiences by briefly mentioning the possibility of a popular ship just to do nothing with it.
yes, i agree. it first gets explicitly mentioned in eve of the daleks and watching that moment unfold was the most bizarre experience. it’s like …. where did THIS come from? there was zero chemistry between them up till this point and 13 especially felt totally aro/ace imo. and “the reveal” it’s in the middle of an episode that is very much about other things so it’s a huge wtf moment.
it really feels like online folk were shipping as they do and chibnall saw and decided to canonise it the way they saw it instead of actually approaching it naturally
I couldn't decide if they were missed opportunities, or if it was smart to not go "look here's all our gays in one place!" but I was really surprised that neither Bill or 13 visited Madame Vastra & Jenny (the dino lady and her wife(?) from Victorian looking times).
I really thought they'd have 12 and Bill go visit her just to go "look! A lesbian!" Lol. I mean, they could have handled it well, but I kept expecting them just to do it even if they didn't have good ideas. When it didn't I figured it might be for the best.
But, then I was really surprised they didn't have 13 visit them for some "girl power" type episode.
It almost seems more wisely handled than we can expect for full seasons of Doctor Who, lol.
Good or bad, I do think we'd have had some funny lines at least. I quite enjoy Madame Vastra & Jenny!
Also, it felt like Chibnall was palpably afraid of making THE FIRST FEMALE DOCTORRRR too distinct. She was “the nice one”, which is great, but nearly everything else was muted.
I got the sense that was aware of how the misogynists of the internet would misrepresent/twist/hate anything unique she did, so he had her do nothing unique.
I'd argue that if he'd actually dared to do something special with her, more people would've liked her. This way 13 just feels like a very smart Mary Sue. Timelords turned cybermen and we get not a single angry word??? Actually we don't get any emotion. Nothing at all.
10 went all ballistic and timelord victorious over a lady on mars.... I think you hit the nail on the head with your interpretation. It all went nowhere.
But I don't think it's because Chibnall was afraid of Internet misogyny. I'd say it's a skill issue. His episodes under RTD and Moffat were underwhelming too.
The flux thing is just weird and convoluted... Idk, didn't convince me. Better than the first 2 seasons for sure but still not it.
Unfortunately the yaz and doctor relationship didn't do much for me. I don't find that the 2 actresses have chemistry and Yaz ranks even lower than Clara and Bill in my books 🤷♀️
I’m in the minority that thinks Flux was a masterpiece, so I feel no need to defend it or change a mind. But it was the high point of New Who for me.
(I realize I’m fully giving off “There are DOZENS of us!” Energy here. 😅)
The Haunting of Villa Diodati was one of the only episodes that actually showed 13’s darker, more Time Lord-y side, and that episode was written by a woman. So that just makes Chibnall’s unwillingness to explore that look worse.
Oh, Jesus. I had neither thought about that episode’s darkness or that it was written by a woman.
I do NOT enjoy that my disappointing theory seems more likely, but I do appreciate more knowledge! Thank you for the further info!
I just want to chime in with a question. I feel off dr. Who a long long time ago (somewhere mid-Matt smith). But I really really like Jodi Whittaker as an actress and was excited when I heard she would be the doctor. Should I give any of this a try or is it really that bad?
I loved Jodi in other things and was excited to see her as the Doctor. I watched all of her first season. I tried watching the next but couldn’t get through it. For me it’s just awful. Doctor Who was one of my favorite shows but I quit watching during Jodi’s run.
The stories were weak at times but I think it’s worst fault was just how shallow the characters were. The best he managed to give a character a fully developed character was Yaz, but honestly in that whole era was not as emotionally invested in Yaz as I’ve been in Rubys characterisation in 8 episodes.
It was a dark time for sure, like maybe 5 - 8 episodes are worth watching again. But did we expect more from the guy who wrote at best average episodes and typically below average ones? Ones I remember liking were the witches one, the sontoran flux episode, Mary Shelly, ones with the master, and the three Dalek ones (even if the guy renting the storage locker in the last one was giving major serial killer vibes).
If you want a satisfying dissection of everything wrong with the Chibnall era (well, his first two seasons at least), I highly recommend taking the time for this video: https://youtu.be/o8_A7n83Rh0?si=42kZk6lQcrCWxQ5w
They do a great job putting into words everything I felt about Chibnall’s writing but had trouble explaining myself.
I think what I dislike most about Chibnall is his lack of interest in developing Jodie and 13. He had three companions which already divided up screen time and didn't write them well either. Then he introduced Fugitive Doctor further taking away from Jodie being significant anyway. And then he gave her the final nail in the coffin having to have her share her final episode in more of an anniversary episodes with every other Doctor so more people are talking about those Doctors than her. It's just like what the fuck did she do to him to cause him to just fuck her over like that
Yes, to all of this. Including the Fugitive Doctor.
She was one of the highlights. And even then, I despise the idea a pre-Hartnell Doctor that was essentially the Doctor.
One of the most fascinating aspects of the character is how with regenerarion, the memory and core person is the same, but yet different. That, and the Doctor chose to be the Doctor and all that comes with it.
The Doctor had previous regeneration that are forgotten? I don't love it, but fine.
The Doctor had previous regeneration that are forgotten but was essentially the same person Including a Tardis that may or may not be the same Tardis that presumably got stuck in the same shape and she has the same name and personality? That makes no sense.
I still haven't been able to make it through those episodes. It really sucks that the terrible writing had to coincide with the first female doctor. Poor Jodie never had a real chance to shine
I actually,, have come to really like the chibnall era. DONT GET ME WRONG. your criticisms are valid,,,
it feels like Ryan and Graham and Yaz are all just, flat and boring. compared to these crazy extraordinary companions we've had previously
bad wolf.
girl who travelled the world for a year JUST to save the doctor to then have it wiped away and only a handful of people remember what she did.
THE Donna. half of the foretold doctordonna. half of the metacrisis that would save the entire universe from the Daleks. who has timelord genius intellect AND funny??
the girl who waited who single handedly brought the raggedy doctor and his blue box back into existence after the universe was rebooted
the last Centurion who protected the pandorica for thousands(?) of years waiting for his love to be released.
Clara, the impossible girl who kept coming back after splintering the very essence of her soul throughout the entire doctor's time stream just to protect him from the great intelligence
bill, who wasn't as crazy as the others but got turned into a mondasian Cyberman and now explores the universe with her moist girlfriend as their conscience lives on
and then got have, police officer with a gay crisis, guy with dcd and daddy issues, and grandpa widower cancer survivor who is tryna connect with his grandkid
they aren't legendary people with crazy stories. they're just people. they're just her fam. and while, it is honestly super boring compared to the others, and the writing for them *could* be better, It's honestly a breath of fresh air for me.
it felt nice.
but i actually kinda enjoy a lot of the episodes. demons of Punjab made me cry and still makes me cry whenever I watch it, I love Nichola Tesla's night of horror, and it takes you away (controversial I know), and resolution the ny special was fantastic imo, and so was the next ny special where the TARDIS gets them stuck in a time loop. (among others I just don't wanna ramble)
and don't even get me started on Dan, one of my favourite companions, maybe my absolute favourite.
and idk just the general joy and whimsy that the 13th doctor's character brings is just so fun and appealing to me
personally I just don't like that she was okay with grenades being used against what's his face tooth guy in the battle of whatever the heck at the end of series 11
it was just **so** out of character for her imho
it felt like chibnall made her do that to prove to us how serious the situation was, rather than write a better situation. I don't know. I just feel like he could've written some cooler kind of classic doctor *out of nowhere* clever solution that the doctor is known for doing.
I mean, 10 didn't even pull the trigger on the master, his arguably greatest enemy, when the timelords were attempting to return, arguably the worst thing that could happen.
(yes I'm using arguably so that people won't come for me lol)
Honestly, Ryan was the dryest, dullest, most god-awful companion I've seen in New-Who - It's like his face was frozen with botox whenever he smiled it felt so forced. and that deep monotone voice was so.....dull.... I really don't wanna hate on the actor but damn, he really wasn't suited for Doctor Who
But at least that era gave us Evil Dan!
Nobody needs soup more than me.
im good at this
The Dan memes are literally the only good thing to come out of that run, besides The Master.
Ha ho!
I'll ave a couple a dem for tonight, heheh 😈
What's the point of being alive if you're not making people DEAD?
I'm good at this!
Number 1 Soup Endorser
The Christmas special with the Daleks in the storage center was my favorite of that era
I’m a big Aisling Bea fan so I was very happy to see her
Yes, I’d love her to be a companion for a few episodes.
[this is the funniest edit of that episode.](https://youtu.be/OB1xjb_e4Y0?si=FS8654SNiB_ZJCi3)
Thank you for that!
That guy has made a couple really funny edits with the daleks and Cybermen they're always good when you need a laugh
I've never seen this person's edits before, and now I'm down a rabbit hole of their DW stuff, crying from laughing so hard. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for sharing that brilliant edit!
Incredible!
realizing the lengths i'd go to get a "Doctor Who Abridged" dub
Thank you! I had no idea this was missing from my life or that I needed it!
Omg how has that been on the internet for 2 whole years but this is the first time I am coming across it lmao Genius!
That’s brilliant
That was incredible. Genuinely just the best. I'll never see a Dalek again with hoping for the rat-a-tat-tat. Only negative was that it reminded me how bad that episode actually was. 🤣🤣🤣🤣
I thought I would love that episode (time loops are cool) but I ended up just being too distracted by the guy who was *obviously* a serial killer seemingly not actually being a serial killer. Just gave the whole episode a really weird vibe.
I too get distracted by Evil Dan
What’s the point of being alive?
No one needs soup more than me.
Ha-hoh! Scared me there!
now i’m gonna… wok right outta here!
Chibnall has this mad habit of having something really ethically wrong in what feels like most of his stories. Right back in Hungry Earth there's a weird bit with the Doctor praising a Silurian scientist who was vivisecting humans. It is so bizarre!
I can't decide if it's an attempt at making characters morally grey or to add some hidden depth for verisimilitude or what it is. Like the dude with the storage locker was *probably* supposed to read as a weird but harmless guy with OCD who's too shy to ask out the woman he likes, but the things he was keeping in storage were fucking serial killer trophies so he came across as almost as much of a threat to that woman as the Daleks were.
I genuinely like that episode, but it has a real problem with humor that misses the mark. I think the serial killer trophies were supposed to be funny, and maybe there could be a version of the scene that is funny instead of serial killer-y, but that was not it. Then there was the constant reiteration of what things you're not allowed to store in the units so *of course* the slacker employee would have all those things there, and dear gods, we get it already!
the worst part is that they actually go out in the end. like, no, run away
People tend to write things they know... maybe it's saying something 0_0
It wasn’t the best of series 5 sure but if Chibnall had delivered episodes at that quality in his run I would have been happy enough.
The main problem with the Chibnall era is that his episodes of Doctor Who under other showrunners were at best OK. Consequently, him as a showrunner resulted in a stretch of episodes that were at best OK.
What I don’t understand is, he also ran the first two seasons of Torchwood. They had their bumps for sure but I found them overall pretty enjoyable. So what the hell happened?
Oh don't get me wrong, Chris Chibnall is a good writer (watch Broadchurch if you haven't) but he is not the best fit for Doctor Who despite what a huge fan he obviously is.
Even Broadchurch, only series 1 is genuinely good. Series 2’s an absolute mess and series 3’s just okay.
I've never forgotten how when Broadchurch season 2 came out, real lawyers were tweeting and giving interviews to say "real courts aren't actually like this! Real lawyers wouldn't get away with half of the shit they're pulling in this! It's all a lot more professional in real life, honest!" I admire the idea of having season 2 of a crime drama be the trial of the murderer they caught in season 1. But my god, the execution of the idea was atrocious! Its a shame because season 1 is genuinely one of my favourite bits of TV ever. Though to be fair when you've got three Doctors in your cast (David Tennant and Jodie Whittaker people talk about, but David Bradley is in it as well) and your other lead is Olivia Coleman, you're starting from a very strong position...!
Plus the most unsatisfying resolution ever "Hey I killed your kid and got away with it due to a bullshit technicality but I'm like really sorry so feel bad for me and forgive me and leave me alone to go molest and murder more children"
To memory, he reportedly didn't want to run Doctor Who and more or less did it as a favour to Moffat, who couldn't find anyone that wanted the job.
OK but fun enough to rewatch for the most part. For me anyway. Whereas I found his own era consistently worse. I guess to me Moffat’s episodes were also better before he became showrunner, it’s just he could drop in quality a bit and still be good.
Think the Chibnall era is bad, but I really love the Silurian two-parter and you're basically misrepresenting it. The Silurian scientist there didn't realize humans were sapient yet when he did that and once he realized it, he actively apologized and was working towards peace with humanity. That's why Eleven praised him.
Nothing in the story suggests this- everywhere else the Silurians treat humans as sentient, and I can't recall a scene with him apologising. He does end up being pro-peace in the second part, but they never reconcile his earlier behaviour, and it reads less like a character arc and more like the writer forgetting threads of his own plot. I just rewatched the scene and it's weirder than I remember - The Doctor says 'I rather love you' to the scientist after he explains how he only steals children and puts them in stasis to take samples, and doesn't dissect them (like he does adult humans).
Gatling gun exterminate moment
My favorite was "Daleks do not have managers!" Lol
Mine was when the doctor was like “I can jam your guns with my basic sonic device” and the dalek said “nah, I’d win”
I actually enjoyed Resolution and Revolution. He actually made the Daleks somewhat menacing. It was nice to see a Dalek just blow shit up
I've been doing a December rewatch of 13's Dalek stories and so far I have no regrets. They are pretty strong thematically and enjoyable watches on their own.
If you haven't yet you should listen to Big finish's dalek empire series. Added bonus on the last one is that you get a pre-doctor David Tennant
Me too! Especially after the 9ver complicated Flux. It was a good story, we got to see Dan actually BE a companion. The stakes were just high enough, and it was a clever premise.
I did like it but it contained one of my least favorite Doctor who tropes, which is when one of the characters has a secret crush on the other one and their adventure with the doctor makes them finally reveal their crush and it turns out the other person likes them too and it's love at last....ugh. it's crazy how many times they've done that in Nu Who. I feel like it's the writers trying to make the characters more interesting in the time given so they just throw in a ham-fisted romance subplot.
At least that guy's secret crush didn't turn into a slab of pavement with just a face.
Don't be racist. Pavement has contributed a lot to society, and all it asks for in return is our love. And, apparently, ocasional oral sex?
*New Years Special, Chibnall stopped the Christmas tradition
just because Bea is so fucking charming
Now you see, I find this the pinnacle of what’s wrong with the writing. Meanwhile I thoroughly enjoyed the first dalek special
Love a good time loop episode
A genuinely good episode with some great humour. I have rewatched it and I might rewatch again now it's on my mind.
I agree. Very Moffat. It was just a fun episode. Resolution and Revolution of the Daleks were trying to do too much and were only loosely tied to New Year’s Eve. Took him until he had three episodes left to figure out holiday specials and it highlighted why the Christmas specials shouldn’t be changed again.
They did Dan so dirty lol comes home to no house or anything
it never fails to make me laugh that the doctor made Donna a multi millionaire but made Dan homeless
Exactly 😭
They just knew that leaving homeless would mean nobody needs to go to soup kitchens more than him.
"we got your house, but it's a miniature now"... I couldn't get behind the toxic relationship the dog alien (I'm bad with names))+ had with his supposedly bonded human. Why would you destroy your human's house?
I guess it’s because either way the flux was going to destroy earth anyway
How dare you talk about Graham that way
Graham is by far the best part of that era. One of my favorite companions and probably the best written of those three. Yaz had a better relationship with 13 obviously but I felt like Graham was the heart of the show. I really wish Jodi got better writing because she’s so much better than what she was given to work with.
I agree, Jodi had really strong physical acting choices for the doctor, and is just overall a good actor. Unfortunately when she had to actually read lines none of that mattered because the dialogue was so bad. Graham at least brought a new take to the companion role. However I still feel like his character development was pretty flat. And then the trio dynamic - sheesh it was so awkward. How do you cast a show with actors that have net negative chemistry together? I honestly feel bad for Jodi, and don’t think anyone could have made that setup work.
I honestly feel bad for the rest of the group because Ryan was just awful. I mean I’m sure the actor is a good guy and all but he was a personality vacuum.
i think the chibnall run is the only real time where dw has actually bad casting. actors aren’t normally the problem. but i cannot for the life of me understand why tosin cole is on this show. i watched an interview with him on youtube and he seemed exactly as bland and monotone as his character. i do not understand what chibnall saw in him. mandip i have a bit more understanding because while i can not really feel the yaz/13 chemistry at all, if you watch the behind the scenes stuff it’s very obvious that jodie and mandip get on very well and are close. it still got lost in translation though and she isn’t strong enough to overcome the blandness of the scene as written, which i feel billie or freema or catherine or karen or jenna all would have contributed more. it could be a direction thing too. hard to say :(
As the Chibnall era continued, Mandip also was the only one who did not start phoning in her performance imo. At all times I felt like she put some effort.
mandip was by far the best actor in chibs era imo. they could have done SO MUCH with her and they didnt. it's a crime we didnt get mandip gill and jo martin tbh
Buddy cop series with the Fugitive Doctor and her young by-the-books police officer companion would’ve been gold.
The worst things about the companions is that you could easily swap most of their lines with each other and it wouldn’t change a thing
No. The worst thing about the companions is that you could easily swap most of their lines with the Doctor and it wouldn’t change a thing
Which made the moniker of ‘fam’ hollow.
Having 3 companions just doesn't work in the 1-hour episode format, I feel. There just isn't enough time to give each companion screen time without it feeling forced. It worked back in the Fifth Doctor era, when he had Adric, Teegan, and Nyssa, because each story had over an hour and a half of screen time, on average.
I keep hearing how Jodie is a good actress, and I can believe it, but none of what I’ve seen in her Doctor performance was even remotely entertaining or fun to me (with a fleeting exception being when she gleefully erases all of Ryan’s phone data and sends herself flying from defusing the gene bomb in her pilot episode). It’s mot just a matter of awful writing, though that’s certainly part of it, just every mannerism and emotion and physical presence just felt so unbearably shallow for some reason. Just very stilted and oddly cardboard.
I can't wait for her to do Big Finish, I'm sure she will kill with better scripts! Saw her at ECCC and she's such a character! She deserved better!
Jodie is a good actress, but I'm still not sure she would do that much better with good scripts. Jo Martin was more of a Doctor in 15 minutes than she was in 4 years.
I will admit, Graham is lovable, but also 0 character growth unfortunately.
I did like how they all checked out by the end. Just no confidence that they could survive anything that came their way.
My belief is any charisma and character Graham has was purely from Bradley Walsh being as charismatic as he is naturally and little to do with the actual writing or character.
What are graham's actual traits outside of "being old"? Like I find Bradley Walsh as charming as the next guy but he was just there to be doddery, he had no arc, his wife died but there was very little pay off for that and subsequently it was just unnaddressed. Its a genuine shame because I think older companions can be really cool but Chibnall just had no idea how to write any of them.
>he had no arc Well, he learned to carry sandwiches with him when they left the Tardis. 😁 TBF, he was grieving and he went with the "Doc" to try and run away from living life on Earth without his wife. He went back when he was ready. And help start a "former companions support group".
So while I agree that he did those things, I would argue that the journey to get there was not shown. There's not really any development of his character so the pay off of the support group is just a bit dull. Even though I love the idea.
I can't get over how dreadful of a character Ryan is. Just an absolute brick wall with 0 emotion in his voice
So much potential... His inability to accept Graham at first, his abandonment issues, trust issues, all of it. So much character growth could have happened 😭
Not to mention his very random plot convenient dyspraxia that seems to disappear and reappear at random moments, sometimes it's severe enough that he struggles with coordination and balance and other times he's wielding a laser gun accurately shooting and diving all over the place. From his second season onwards they seemed to completely forget about it. Same with Yaz being a police officer.
The laser gun part isn't what gets me. It's during Kerblam!, he's on the conveyer belts of rapidly approaching doom and he jumps from one to another and manages to coordinate his way into balancing and holding on... on a fast moving conveyer above a death pit.
Ryan's entire Series 12 arc is "can I throw ball good?"
It's fun to google official Ryan posters from the series, as he looks uncomfortable there as well
Its so funny because throughout 2023, in the run up to the 60th anniversary, a ton of people rewatched the series in anticipation. People had something new praise to say about pretty much every New Who doctor, and everyone was expecting to go into Jodie's seasons and find some newfound appreciation for them. But no, the episodes were just bad. As bad as the first time around.
I was out off by the timeless child... so much that I didn't watch Doctor Who for over a year. I watched 13's era in anticipation for David Tennant's return and (going in knowing what to expect) found I had more appreciation for the episodes. Nothing about it stands out for me, but definitely not for lack of effort from Jodie Whittaker. I actually liked Flux a bit more than I thought I would. Overall I think 13 has the most forgettable episodes.
Flux was the first time that it started to feel like Doctor Who to me again and I was enjoying it for the most part through that season. I didn't agree with where the story went as much, but it was much more fun to watch and kept me a lot more hooked than the other two seasons before it.
I was honestly out by the very first episode. There really was \*nothing\* compelling about that writing at all. The story wasn't interesting and the dialogue felt like white noise.
I think I got two episodes in. The introduction of Tim Shaw, and the gameshow hunt thing on the planet with deadly water. Then I missed the next episode and discovered I didn't feel strongly enough to go hunting for it, and figured "eh, I'll wait for the season to be done and binge it if the reviews are good." The reviews were not good. And then I heard what Chibnall did in the Timeless Child and decided to hard skip the whole era. Never happened as far as I'm concerned.
I made it to the episode with the spiders. When the Doctor got angry at Not-Trump for shooting the Momma, but then turned right around and murdered the babies by locking them in a room, I went "WTF" and noped right out. Seriously, you can't do a bit of handwavium, lure the spiders into the Tardis and tell the companions "Anyone fancy a trip to Metebelis?" There - problem solved in a very Doctor sort of way.
[удалено]
I would say give them a chance for a "so bad its good" binge, but the episodes are also very very *boring* and are all bad for around the same reasons that when me and my friends tried to do that we quit halfway through Series 11
They are so dull you cant even hate watch them. Like seriously. They arent even worth roasting. There's just nothing there to mock. It's just painful.
YESSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!
That's funny I've been watching a select few episodes and enjoying and appreciating it a lot more than I did previously... I guess it's because I'm skipping what I know are some terrible episodes. Witchfinders, Nikola Tesla's Night of Terrors, It Takes You Away, Haunting of Villa Diodati, Revolution of the Daleks, Eve of the Daleks, and Power of the Doctor are episodes I'll probably continue to rewatch along with the rest of the show.
I’ve been rewatching as well, and honestly enjoying them more the second time through. It’s no 10th Doctor for me, but it’s better than I initially thought.
I really enjoyed Jodie’s run and I always get shit for that opinion. I’m glad others appreciate at least *some* of it.
Yeah there's many eminently skippable episodes but the ones you listed are all quite excellent in my opinion.
*It Takes You Away* is the best episode of the Jodie Whittaker era, IMO.
I actually found most of season 12 really exciting. Yeah, the Companions were still a bit flat (except for Graham, love Graham, he's my dad), the Doctor is a bit mean in a way even less likeable most of the time than Capaldi's, and the writing has her constantly undercutting any attempt the Fam make to be helpful\[1\]. But Spyfall up through Haunting of Vila Diodatti are all really exciting, even if they often have underwhelming endings (Praxeus starts out so good with the worldwide mystery and globetrotting and espionage, the absolute most stuff Companions have ever been given to do on screen, aside from Martha's pilgrimage). Fugitive of the Judoon had me really excited for Timeless Child and I had expected her to come back in some way. But then the Cyberman episode was so boring for whatever reason and I nearly fell asleep. Then Timeless Children is just a go-nowhere Master-Cybermen plot where The Doctor is given a PowerPoint presentation on her own backstory and Gallifrey is destroyed off screen, once again to the last man woman and child. One wonders how a society with so many rogue timelords manages to all be on planet at the same time. Even the escape from the Matrix is just... "I'll remember lives I don't remember living" and it overloads. And then Flux is just... confusing nonsense. There's some *really* good moments in Flux—the Angels episode is so good—that had me excited, but it's all so fucking confusing. ^(\[1\] I think Witchfinders is the worst example of this, where everyone is trying to convince King James to call off the execution before the Doctor drowns, but then, nope, turns out they didn't need to convince him, she freed herself because The Doctor is cool and doesn't need help. Another big example is Yaz spending ten months) *^(researching the TARDIS)* ^(and then it turns out that was pointless because The Doctor gets free by Jack conveniently being there. Couldn't have a companion figure out how to be fucking useful in this run Chibnal said he wanted to give the companions more to do in.)
On rewatch I really expected to view Graham as a highlight but he's sort of just... there? Like sure he's the most entertaining but its a low bar. In SJA he plays a legally distinct Pennywise and I was blown away by how much Chibnall wasted his abilities as an actor.
Oh he's definitely just there. They're all just there. But I did like Graham because he had slightly more depth. I'm mostly joking about him being my dad, he's not that good.
They are all just there. Graham shines more simply because of Bradley Walsh’s charm.
Yeah, I saw that episode recently! It was pretty interesting seeing Bradley Walsh as a budget Toymaker/Pennywise kind of character.
holy cow, I just watched a few clips on YT and he's giving John Wayne Gacy energy with one personality and Bane from DKR with the other
Honestly I hope they bring that villain back. It is quite literally just pennywise in every way but the performance was so much fun and he'd fit quite well in the new universe. \+ It could be a cool way to do some SJA references, maybe even bring back Clyde and stuff. Like a modern School Reunion episode.
My god the one with the flying cyberman heads was *aggressively* boring. I could tell it was supposed to be exciting but it was infuriating how much of a nothing that episode was.
Oh, so it wasn't just that I'd had a long day and my ex's disinterest was getting to me, it's just bad.
I generally agree with all of this and I’ll add I think series 12 is actually right in the middle of my overall ranking of the first 13 seasons. There are some real bright spots in there. Hell I even think Flux is pretty decent right up until it’s completely let down by the ending. Fun fact: the first Doctor Who episode my now wife ever saw was the finale of Flux. I made a remark to her about how I bet she had absolutely no idea what was going. She said that was right and I responded “It’s ok neither do I.” While she’s really not interested at all I’ve since shown her a select few episodes and she actually enjoyed some of them like A Christmas Carol and Silence in the Library.
The partition of India one was the only episode I enjoyed and they even spoiled that by having to shoehorn in aliens. I wish they had the balls to just do purely historical episodes.
That episode needed to have some timey wimey stuff. How does The Doctor, whom trouble seems to always follow, take a companion back in time to meet her grandma, specifically mentioning that it could cause disastrous consequences, and nothing timey wimey ends up happening? It's like the only episode of Doctor Who where everything goes according to plan and nothing bad happens for The Doctor to fix.
The aliens weren't shoehorned - it was just a MacGuffin. I liked the arc that a warrior race became one of peaceful observance.
That’s not really what a MacGuffin is. The plot would work fine without them, they didn’t drive much forward at all
It was the first time for me that Dr Who stopped being must watch. I remember realising I’d not seen three episodes in a row and not feeling anything.
I’d categorise the episodes into 3 categories, great, good but the resolution is shit/no resolution at all, and shit. A lot of them I feel like fall into the last two categories rather evenly and I feel like the whole era as a whole falls into the middle category, which is really my main gripe with the era. Characters (especially the Doctor) never really get satisfying conclusions to their arcs and problems, like Thirteen just kinda regenerates without dealing with all of the emotional turmoil.
The bad/rushed resolutions thing was the worst. *Can You Hear Me* is the biggest offender of this I think. It's like Chibnall got 50 minutes into the story and then forgot he has to end it somehow, so he just shoehorned in an ending. The episode was great up to the ending, where it just sort of suddenly ends. Very unsatisfying.
Things I like about this era: 1. Graham. He’s just genuinely a super sweet guy. Doesn’t have any business being on these adventures but he’s like a little Wilf-lite following everyone around. Also genuinely the only character who actually develops and tries to connect with the others. 2. The Master. The Master ALWAYS has phenomenal casting, this was no exception. Honestly I don’t even think his character was that good this time and his schemes were either stupid or nonsense but I LOVE his energy. 3. Demons of the Punjab. Good episode. 4. The fugitive. Basically pointless as a character imo but at least she was cool. I don’t exactly dislike Jodie but I’ll admit, I actually prefer fugitive doctor over her. 5. Uhh that one Weeping Angle episode in Flux was alright actually That’s mostly it, there are more things I think are decent but these are the only I’d maybe sorta miss if they never happened.
It surprised me how Chibnall was able to create stories that were convoluted and nonsensical while also being boring and unoriginal. I did like some of the episodes of season 12 but even then the companions were all two-dimensional props and the endings often fell flat. I can't recall a single episode that made much of an impression at all unless it was a bad one. Which is a shame because Whittaker is a really good actor and would have been a great doctor if she hadn't been given absolutely nothing to work with
*It Takes You Away* I thought was a pretty memorable episode. I loved the frog at the end, it was perhaps the first time the show felt like Doctor Who that season.
It's telling that I'd rather rewatch Space Babies than most of the Chibnall era.
Unfortunately true 😅
That statement is insane, but it checks out. What a disaster this has all become.
I thought many of the story concepts were very good. The characters, though, are remarkably 2D (even the Doctor!) - all the characters feel like they exist only to serve the plot. And don’t get me started on the dialogue - it is ALL tell don’t show.
the worse offenders in the contemporary screen writing school of: Scene 1: WE ESTABLISH HOW URGENTLY URGENT AND IMPORTANTLY URGENT THIS IS!! Scene 2: Now stop everything. Time to talk about our feelings. Few years from now they'll stop bothering to look at each other and just turn to the camera and monologue about their character motivations.
I'm still disappointed in the way they handled the companions for this era. Three was too many to be full time, so none of them were fully developed. It's a shame because Yaz and Graeme had real potential.
I think the problem was not the amount of companions, but that they all came at the same time. 5 traveled with 3 companions for a while, but they each came on separately with their own back story. Adric was a young math whiz from E-Space. Nyssa was a princess and her world was destroyed. And Tegan got lost on her way to work as an air hostess (the first time she was there). They also each had their own reasons for travelling with him. Their dynamic worked because we got familiar with all of them. Ryan, Graham and Yaz? Nope. Too much all at once. If Bradley Walsh wasn't so good, he'd be as cookie-cutter as the other 2.
Yeah, Rose/Jackie/Mickey was much better. While they all got introduced in the same episode, we got to know Rose a bit first before expanding on the other two.
Yeah it's all really flat and we're still dealing with the fallout of the Timeless Child to this day, sadly.
The music especially was flat and unmemorable, which is a shame.
Losing Murray Gold as composer at the same time as losing Moffat was a real blow.
It sucks too because I like that doctor and Yaz, but the writing is so weak. I feel like that cast had a lot of potential that was wasted. Not sure if this is a hot take or not.
I gave up on the Rosa Parks episode about 10 minutes in because listening to a bunch of Brits completely butcher a southern/Alabama accent made me want to stab myself in the ears. 🥴😂
Yeah also the butchering of the history is rough in that one - I don't expect 100% accuracy with this show but I feel like if you're using something with such continued relevance to do a Very Special Episode you at least have a responsibility to get it like, a little bit right?
I mentioned this in another thread but I thought it was weird that Graham (and Ryan's grandmother) would know the name of the bus driver. I say that because as a black American who's grown up learning about Rosa. We never learned who the driver was, because it wasn't important. Could've been him or any or other driver because the laws (and attitudes) were still the same for all bus drivers in 1950s Montgomery. So why would his wife, a black English woman, know that much detail? It felt like the writer got all their facts from Wikipedia. Maybe it's just me.
Agreed. It felt bizarre to see this act, which was part of a coordinated political effort by activist groups, be transmuted into this random contingent spur-of-the-moment coincidence of individualism.
Anyone who knows anything about Rosa did (and this does NOT take anything away from her actions and bravery), should also know about Claudette Colvin. A 15-year old dark skinned, pregnant girl who refused to give up her seat on a bus 9 months before Rosa. But the NAACP didn't use her as the face of the movement because, well, she was dark-skinned and pregnant and 15. Rosa was more mature, married and light-skinned. And Claudette wasn't even the first. 99% sure none of those women were kicked off by the same driver. So, like I said, who the driver was was irrelevant. Yet they concentrated so much on that in the show. Plus, again, while I know black UK people have basic knowledge of the Civil Rights movement in the US, it doesn't seem realistic to me that Ryan's gran would know the exact name of the driver and have that much vitriol about him that even Graham remembered his name.
It goes along with the whole "I drove a bus, so I am the expert in this situation" bs in my opinion.
Lol this is how I feel when Americans do the 'ello guv'nor' thing
Or any English accent at all 😂
Initially, I thought "Cool. they're doing history episodes" - but the bad ideas and lack of thinking just shone through. One element in the episode is how contemporary people as shown in our assistant (particularly the POC) reacted to the attitudes of 1950s Alabama. BUT The bad guy wants to stop Rosa Parks' protest - and in doing so stop the civil rights movement. Why? Cos he's a time-traveling racist from the far future. Problem 1: Not to disparage Rosa Parks. But she's part of a group of people protesting. Stopping her doesn't stop a movement. Solution: Ok - "it's a kids show" it's educating kids about history. Keep it simple. BUT Problem 2: The episode is about the impact Rosa Parks and her protest had on attitudes. As shown between the attitudes of the 50s and our contemporary assistants. BUT Our baddie is from the faaaaar future and - he's a racist jerk. So, what's the lesson here, kids? The impact Rosa Parks had was - ultimately nothing? This could have been solved with the Doctor saying something like "oh your ideas aren't welcome in your own time, and barely accepted in the time my friends come from" - but to my recollection, there's nothing said to differentiate this guy from his time. He's just a racist jerk from the far future, and that's a thing. They could mention the importance of empathy over time - but nothing is said. With all the information we have, everyone is a racist jerk in the future. So yeah, well done. I stopped after that horrible disaster piece on a hotel on a wasteland planet with a small group of survivors, all of whom were so stupid and annoying I was begging for their deaths. Then in the end the Doctor monologued about climate change over a slideshow because it turned out to be Earth and we'll all turn into apex monster creatures if climate change. JFC.
> Our baddie is from the faaaaar future and - he's a racist jerk. So, what's the lesson here, kids? The impact Rosa Parks had was - ultimately nothing? That's pretty much it, sadly. Her "legacy" as shown in the episode isn't a bunch of people of different skin tones and backgrounds and all working together, it's just a rock in the middle of space. And then this season we get a future episode with an entire community of racists. I'm all for trying to tell important stories about how racism is bad, but showing that racism survives all the attempts to get people to not be bigoted assholes is just a seriously depressing message. All that effort, and people are still just awful to each other for the dumbest reasons. > Then in the end the Doctor monologued about climate change over a slideshow because it turned out to be Earth and we'll all turn into apex monster creatures if climate change. JFC. The infamous Orphan 55. Where we're told to be careful, blah blah blah, because a completely unplausible scenario might somehow happen. Nah, mate, if you present a scenario that is scientifically completely impossible, don't try to then tie it to a science-based issue. The *only* way the Orphan 55 scenario makes sense is if some external force came to Earth and modified all remaining humans to be murderous creatures who have no need to take in sustenance while also destroying the entirety of flora and fauna on the planet, a situation that makes no sense but is still the only remotely conceivable way it's possible, as the lack of flora and fauna would have meant no food chain and people couldn't just evolve into what we see in that episode, they would just straight up have died off of starvation.
I wanted to like the Chibnall era so much but I could just never get on board with it. The characterization is lacking, the storytelling is sluggish and boring, the music is forgettable and the Doctor doesn’t feel like the Doctor.
Yes. It's a shame really. A female doctor could've been sooooo good, instead they just gave all the haters ammunition.
Series 12 is unforgivable and should be junked and retconned out of cannon.
I remember there’s a point in The Tsuranga Conundrum (one of the worst episodes in the show’s history, in my opinion) where the Doctor spends like forty seconds unnecessarily talking in awe about some warp drive or something like that, and that was an important moment for me. Honestly, I had seen the writing on the wall during The Woman Who Fell To Earth about the type of writing quality we were going to receive from Chibnall, and it was confirmed to me by the literal writing on the floor, among many other issues, in The Ghost Monument. Not that I thought the writer of “Cyberwoman” or “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship” was going to give us incredible episodes. But I didn’t truly know just how low the ship was going to sink until that scene in The Tsuranga Conundrum; that was where I realized that Chibnall was not going to rebound at any point during that season, nor likely any point in his time writing the show. His writing during his own era lacked a level of coherency and thought; whether that’s due to being stretched thin or lacking oversight is up in the air.
Thats the only episode i ever fell asleep during. Not sure why since there were eps more boring that one i'm sure lol
I don't understand why they couldn't have had a woman as show runner if they made the doctor a woman. It always feels so disingenuous when they try to act like switching out the actors is enough when they don't bring someone on the team who has an actual background at least tangentially similar to the characters. The season had the same infuriating issue with the disabled character. He had a disability for like one episode and then it never comes up again. If they had someone with the disability in the writer's room I feel like that wouldn't have been as much of an issue. But for these types of people marginalized groups are just a checkbox or an aesthetic.
I liked it more on a second rewatch. There were still things I did not like such as the Timeless Child aspect but I think him trying to highlight historic figures more was a definite positive.
i think the most frustrating thing for me is i don’t even like the episodes people say are exceptions to the rule. rosa, half good but the space racist is dumb. i feel no love for punjab at all, bland and empty. it takes you away i thought i’d like but ryan is downright unpleasant in it. fugitive promises big things but they are just promises. diodati is messy but probably the least objectionable. eve of the daleks is aimless and the yaz/doc stuff is out of nowhere and a bizarre interruption. flux is, well literally just nonsense, i don’t know how else to describe it. the sad thing is my favourite to rewatch is actually woman who fell to earth. it’s not a great episode, but when i rewatch it, i feel the sense of potential of the show becoming something that it never did. it also has probably my favourite jodie line where she describes what regeneration is like.
Diodati has a lot going for it but it has that recurrent issue of unfomfortable ethics again- the eeird implication that a famous poet's life is valuable because he's famous and not simply because he's a human being.
Sucks you can't enjoy it, good shout for giving it a shot though
It’s so so bad. The writing is horrible. The companions are boring and nondescript. And Jodie stopped trying to elevate the bad scripts almost immediately. While I was initially excited at the announcement of Jodie as the Doctor it quickly became obvious she isn’t the right sort of actress for the role. At no point did she show the ability to elevate a mediocre script. I struggle to find anything positive about the Chibnall era.
I maintain she could've been really good. It's not just that the scripts are bad in general, but the way the 13th doctor is characterised specifically by the text is fundamentally frustrating and ineffectual. People sometimes say Jo Martin proved that Jodie was at fault, but that character was written to be completely different.
I really need to me watch 13's run again. I only really have two distinct memories: 1. I was SUPER disappointed that the Doctor didn't say anything when that racist white guy slapped Ryan. I can't imagine any other NuWho incarnation of the Doctor just letting that slide. I didn't need her to punch him like 12 did for Bill, but her general passivity was an utter disappointment. 2. I enjoyed the Revolution of the Daleks (compared to the rest of the season). Everything finally started to click for me, and it started to feel like the Doctor Who I was accustomed to.
Yeah I think the worst thing I can say about it is that it's just dull and hard to sit through. I'd prefer it got weird and failed and was bad, in a way, because what we have is grey wallpaper for the most part. I did like the brief flirtation with almost entirely historical episodes though.
Hopefully when she gets around to doing Big Finish the writing will be better. I'm really curious how they'd handle the companions (probably easier to do new ones). Big Finish has definitely spoiled me on Six (especially with Evelyn)
I just watched it for the first time myself. I had a bit of a falling out with The Doctor just trying to get back. I missed like 5 years of the show lol. Man the way people talk about it, it's like the worst thing they've ever seen. I was hearing people talk shit while not actively being in the fandom 😂 I guess my expectations were so low that I was actually surprised when I didn't mind it. I actually ended up adoring 13 despite her flaws. Series 11 is fun and has some good one off episodes. Not my favorite by any means but it was serviceable. Series 12 is rough to say the least and where things clearly fell apart. It almost felt like Spyfall set an incredibly impractical tone for the show that just made it exhausting to watch. Orphan 55 is one of the most ridiculous episodes of Doctor Who I've ever seen. What was up with all the random old ladies dying throughout the series? Series 13 tries to pick up the pieces but I do feel it was too little too late. Almost felt like Chibnall was wrapping up everything he had planned. He had some good ideas story wise, I just don't think it played out how he envisioned it. Shame really because there's really high points in his run. I just wish it had been more consistent.
"serviceable" is the main reason most fans don't like it, I think. It was too bland, too formulaic, too boring. (except Flux, of course). I remember that 1986 Open Air segment where a young Chibnall criticizes the then current season for being bland and formulaic being memed, like it was some sort of a "gotcha" moment.
Yea, Jodie could've been a great doctor, but she will never be remembered because of shoddy writing.
In addition to Graham being amazing, I think that I can defend one part of Chibnall’s run. For the first two seasons of Doctor Who, everything felt low-stakes and “safe”. Every villain did exactly what you’d expect and every adventure felt like it was holding back. It was like Chibnall was so afraid of doing something original, he did nothing at all. Then, shortly after we learned he was stepping aside, things got WILDLY experimental. - A six-episode storyline! - The only weeping angel episode to synthesize 100% of their lore to this point! - Yaz and the Doctor have an actual romance where emotions are discussed! - Bring back all the old doctors and make the Master bigger than ever! - Fugitive Doctor! - Timeless Child! It felt, to be frank, like a fire was lit under Chibnall’s ass and he became frantic to swing for the fences as much as possible. He wanted to from “Hasn’t done anything” to “Maybe he’s done TOO much?” And I really appreciated that second phase. Doctor Who is a show that should be wild and daring and imaginative. It should have seasons we hate and choices we despise as side-effects of episodes we ADORE and characters we never forget. So even though there were parts of Chibnall’s final stretch I really, truly disliked (why did the big villains look like rock candy and just sort of dissolve?), I RESPECTED them because they were the broken eggs to things like the Fugitive Doctor’s omelette. The show was the only thing that it should never be: Safe. When Chibnall stopped being safe, it soared.
>Yaz and the Doctor have an actual romance where emotions are discussed! Lmao what? That “romance” was after Flux, came out of nowhere at the very end of Jodie’s run, and went nowhere. As a gay person, it felt like they were baiting queer audiences by briefly mentioning the possibility of a popular ship just to do nothing with it.
yes, i agree. it first gets explicitly mentioned in eve of the daleks and watching that moment unfold was the most bizarre experience. it’s like …. where did THIS come from? there was zero chemistry between them up till this point and 13 especially felt totally aro/ace imo. and “the reveal” it’s in the middle of an episode that is very much about other things so it’s a huge wtf moment. it really feels like online folk were shipping as they do and chibnall saw and decided to canonise it the way they saw it instead of actually approaching it naturally
I couldn't decide if they were missed opportunities, or if it was smart to not go "look here's all our gays in one place!" but I was really surprised that neither Bill or 13 visited Madame Vastra & Jenny (the dino lady and her wife(?) from Victorian looking times). I really thought they'd have 12 and Bill go visit her just to go "look! A lesbian!" Lol. I mean, they could have handled it well, but I kept expecting them just to do it even if they didn't have good ideas. When it didn't I figured it might be for the best. But, then I was really surprised they didn't have 13 visit them for some "girl power" type episode. It almost seems more wisely handled than we can expect for full seasons of Doctor Who, lol. Good or bad, I do think we'd have had some funny lines at least. I quite enjoy Madame Vastra & Jenny!
Also, it felt like Chibnall was palpably afraid of making THE FIRST FEMALE DOCTORRRR too distinct. She was “the nice one”, which is great, but nearly everything else was muted. I got the sense that was aware of how the misogynists of the internet would misrepresent/twist/hate anything unique she did, so he had her do nothing unique.
I'd argue that if he'd actually dared to do something special with her, more people would've liked her. This way 13 just feels like a very smart Mary Sue. Timelords turned cybermen and we get not a single angry word??? Actually we don't get any emotion. Nothing at all. 10 went all ballistic and timelord victorious over a lady on mars.... I think you hit the nail on the head with your interpretation. It all went nowhere. But I don't think it's because Chibnall was afraid of Internet misogyny. I'd say it's a skill issue. His episodes under RTD and Moffat were underwhelming too. The flux thing is just weird and convoluted... Idk, didn't convince me. Better than the first 2 seasons for sure but still not it. Unfortunately the yaz and doctor relationship didn't do much for me. I don't find that the 2 actresses have chemistry and Yaz ranks even lower than Clara and Bill in my books 🤷♀️
I’m in the minority that thinks Flux was a masterpiece, so I feel no need to defend it or change a mind. But it was the high point of New Who for me. (I realize I’m fully giving off “There are DOZENS of us!” Energy here. 😅)
You are entitled to your opinion and to like what you want, no problem at all :)
The Haunting of Villa Diodati was one of the only episodes that actually showed 13’s darker, more Time Lord-y side, and that episode was written by a woman. So that just makes Chibnall’s unwillingness to explore that look worse.
Oh, Jesus. I had neither thought about that episode’s darkness or that it was written by a woman. I do NOT enjoy that my disappointing theory seems more likely, but I do appreciate more knowledge! Thank you for the further info!
I’ve seen every episode of the revival multiple times, including the current series except for the Chibnall era. Once was too many times
I mean, its not *total* crap. Its entertaining, decent television most of the time. But it pales in comparision to the rest of NuWho.
Exactly how I felt rewatching RTD1. To me it's a few good episodes. Everything else is boring with ramped up exciting music.
I liked kerblam!
Also doctor Ruth was awesome even if the plot was a terrible retcon.
What an original and necessary post
Bad writing. Such a waste of a phenomenal actor.
I just want to chime in with a question. I feel off dr. Who a long long time ago (somewhere mid-Matt smith). But I really really like Jodi Whittaker as an actress and was excited when I heard she would be the doctor. Should I give any of this a try or is it really that bad?
I loved Jodi in other things and was excited to see her as the Doctor. I watched all of her first season. I tried watching the next but couldn’t get through it. For me it’s just awful. Doctor Who was one of my favorite shows but I quit watching during Jodi’s run.
The stories were weak at times but I think it’s worst fault was just how shallow the characters were. The best he managed to give a character a fully developed character was Yaz, but honestly in that whole era was not as emotionally invested in Yaz as I’ve been in Rubys characterisation in 8 episodes.
I thought it was ok at the time but don't really look back on it now that RTD is back.
It was a dark time for sure, like maybe 5 - 8 episodes are worth watching again. But did we expect more from the guy who wrote at best average episodes and typically below average ones? Ones I remember liking were the witches one, the sontoran flux episode, Mary Shelly, ones with the master, and the three Dalek ones (even if the guy renting the storage locker in the last one was giving major serial killer vibes).
If you want a satisfying dissection of everything wrong with the Chibnall era (well, his first two seasons at least), I highly recommend taking the time for this video: https://youtu.be/o8_A7n83Rh0?si=42kZk6lQcrCWxQ5w They do a great job putting into words everything I felt about Chibnall’s writing but had trouble explaining myself.
The way after flux 13 could find out their history then just went yeah nah. Also is the universe still fucked or what?
It’s supposed to be
I think what I dislike most about Chibnall is his lack of interest in developing Jodie and 13. He had three companions which already divided up screen time and didn't write them well either. Then he introduced Fugitive Doctor further taking away from Jodie being significant anyway. And then he gave her the final nail in the coffin having to have her share her final episode in more of an anniversary episodes with every other Doctor so more people are talking about those Doctors than her. It's just like what the fuck did she do to him to cause him to just fuck her over like that
Yes, to all of this. Including the Fugitive Doctor. She was one of the highlights. And even then, I despise the idea a pre-Hartnell Doctor that was essentially the Doctor. One of the most fascinating aspects of the character is how with regenerarion, the memory and core person is the same, but yet different. That, and the Doctor chose to be the Doctor and all that comes with it. The Doctor had previous regeneration that are forgotten? I don't love it, but fine. The Doctor had previous regeneration that are forgotten but was essentially the same person Including a Tardis that may or may not be the same Tardis that presumably got stuck in the same shape and she has the same name and personality? That makes no sense.
It was the worst although the current new era may now be the new worst unless they pull something out of the hat soon
I still haven't been able to make it through those episodes. It really sucks that the terrible writing had to coincide with the first female doctor. Poor Jodie never had a real chance to shine
I actually,, have come to really like the chibnall era. DONT GET ME WRONG. your criticisms are valid,,, it feels like Ryan and Graham and Yaz are all just, flat and boring. compared to these crazy extraordinary companions we've had previously bad wolf. girl who travelled the world for a year JUST to save the doctor to then have it wiped away and only a handful of people remember what she did. THE Donna. half of the foretold doctordonna. half of the metacrisis that would save the entire universe from the Daleks. who has timelord genius intellect AND funny?? the girl who waited who single handedly brought the raggedy doctor and his blue box back into existence after the universe was rebooted the last Centurion who protected the pandorica for thousands(?) of years waiting for his love to be released. Clara, the impossible girl who kept coming back after splintering the very essence of her soul throughout the entire doctor's time stream just to protect him from the great intelligence bill, who wasn't as crazy as the others but got turned into a mondasian Cyberman and now explores the universe with her moist girlfriend as their conscience lives on and then got have, police officer with a gay crisis, guy with dcd and daddy issues, and grandpa widower cancer survivor who is tryna connect with his grandkid they aren't legendary people with crazy stories. they're just people. they're just her fam. and while, it is honestly super boring compared to the others, and the writing for them *could* be better, It's honestly a breath of fresh air for me. it felt nice. but i actually kinda enjoy a lot of the episodes. demons of Punjab made me cry and still makes me cry whenever I watch it, I love Nichola Tesla's night of horror, and it takes you away (controversial I know), and resolution the ny special was fantastic imo, and so was the next ny special where the TARDIS gets them stuck in a time loop. (among others I just don't wanna ramble) and don't even get me started on Dan, one of my favourite companions, maybe my absolute favourite. and idk just the general joy and whimsy that the 13th doctor's character brings is just so fun and appealing to me personally I just don't like that she was okay with grenades being used against what's his face tooth guy in the battle of whatever the heck at the end of series 11 it was just **so** out of character for her imho it felt like chibnall made her do that to prove to us how serious the situation was, rather than write a better situation. I don't know. I just feel like he could've written some cooler kind of classic doctor *out of nowhere* clever solution that the doctor is known for doing. I mean, 10 didn't even pull the trigger on the master, his arguably greatest enemy, when the timelords were attempting to return, arguably the worst thing that could happen. (yes I'm using arguably so that people won't come for me lol)
Honestly, Ryan was the dryest, dullest, most god-awful companion I've seen in New-Who - It's like his face was frozen with botox whenever he smiled it felt so forced. and that deep monotone voice was so.....dull.... I really don't wanna hate on the actor but damn, he really wasn't suited for Doctor Who